The Day We Met

“If you don't get dressed immediately, we will be late,” she says. “Dress, please. Take your top.”

He is not listening, he is still wearing his pajamas. He is all over the house, because that is what he does when it's about time to leave. He is driving two cars, and he also is writing a letter.

“With a red pen,” he says. “A letter to you!”

She is supposed to feel touched, but she doesn't.

Mornings used to be slow and enjoyable. Now she regularly locks herself in a bathroom and sits there on the floor.

“Put on your clothes,” she says louder.

“I've only got two hands! I can't,” he cries out in a similar manner.

“Jesus,” she says, though Christmas was a long time ago.

For Christmas she gave him a wonderful drawing kit. She would have been over the moon, if, as a kid, she got something like that. He didn't like the kit, at all. Santa chose poorly, he said, and just hid it away. She wept a little then, as she knew she had chosen well.

Christmas was long time ago, and they've got nice pictures of the Christmas tree and wrapped gifts, and the lights. Now it's nearly summer, and she is trying to put a long-sleeved top on him. A colorful top with stars and planets. Just yesterday he liked it so much. The arms won't fit the sleeves today, and the head seems bigger than the neck of the shirt. She needs to stuff him in, and then they have to leave the house. That's how things should work: you get up, get dressed, have breakfast, and start the day.

He didn't want to eat, and he doesn't want to dress.

“It's your own business if you're hungry until lunch,” she says in a cold voice.

He starts whining. Of course.

“If you want me to kiss you good-bye, we have to leave in two minutes,” she continues. “Otherwise I will have to rush to work and won't kiss you.”

While doing that, that, she is struggling with a top. It definitely seems like a different top from a different boy now. Planets have shrank and are splattered with yesterday's yogurt. (She can't remember feeding him yogurt. She remembers them laughing on the couch. Things will never be the same as yesterday).

“Is this top from a different boy?” she asks.

And, finally, she gets a scream. One honest, meaningless and desperate sound, followed by the next loud and meaningless one that tears her up, exposes family secrets, justifies everything that will be said after.

“Are you stupid?” she states more than asks. “Tell me, are you stupid? You are stupid! Is it so difficult to put on a top for a person of your age?”

Three times she says it.

He shouts back:

“No! I am not stupid! I am not stupid!”

Five times he shouts back, and then once again.

They leave the house on time, both with red faces. She kisses him good-bye all over, his cheeks and hands.

“I will get home from work earlier today. I promise. That's a promise.”

She indeed tries to make it not sound like a threat.

He waves at her.

She will have to live with that, and she will be punished, of course. She will get a call from school, and the teacher will say that the kid has a fever, that the kid is ill, he doesn't feel well, and she has to take the kid home. The kid. Her kid, to put it more precisely. She is sitting at a work meeting, waiting for the call. No one calls, yet. She is pretty sure that when he grows up he won't remember the good things—their travels, their kisses—he will remember only bad things like her calling him stupid three times. Because that's what kids do, they remember bad things and then go through psychotherapy in an attempt to get rid of parents' voices in their head. That's the kind of kid she was. She still is.

No one calls, yet.

“You did a great job,” someone at the meeting says.

She replies:

“Thank you.”

She lives through the day, anticipating something bad, but this bad thing doesn't happen. As if when looking at the sky, and it's clouded and dark, and it should be raining, but the rain can't burst out.

When someone is someone's kid, those two people are alike. They share the same genes. When someone is someone else's kid, the kid is the continuation of the parents' entity.

She is having fish and mashed potatoes for lunch. She could eat fish all the time, and the kid, her kid, to put it more precisely, doesn't like fish. Despite shared genes.

“Fish is not important,” she interrupts herself. “The letters are.”

The letter, written in a red pen, is waiting at home. The letter with the words of love, naturally. She used to write such letters to her parents. Stuffed with the words of love, too.

The day goes as it goes, a usual day, not worth keeping in memory, and even the rain won't fall.

“He's got some spots on his chest,” the teacher says.

“Spots on the chest?” she exclaims. “Why didn't you call me?”

“We thought about that,” the teaches continues in a slightly defensive manner. “But, other than that, he is fine, no fever, no other symptoms. A happy cheerful child.”

She hugs her kid. A happy kid, as they say.

“It might be an allergy,” the teacher says. “Did he eat something?”

She shrugs. Of course, it's an allergy, she thinks, he is intoxicated.

She looks at his chest. Small red dots shaped up like a scar. At least, that's what she sees.

They go home, they hold hands. They cross the oceans, they overcome obstacles, they jump over lava, and who knows what kind of monsters are hiding around the corner.

“Can you see it?” he exclaims. “Be careful—volcano!”

She tries to see it, she really does. She drags both of them in the direction of home. The streets are noisy, uneven, it's not easy to overcome obstacles sometimes.

“Are these mountains?” she asks eventually, pointing at a pile of mud.

“Yes!” he says with joy, and looks up at her.

She can't help but ask:

“What is in your letter?”

“What letter?”

“The one you wrote in the morning.”

He pauses for a second and then says:

“But I didn't write it. At all.”

“Of course,” she says. “Maybe you want me to make you pancakes?”

He responds in a second.

“Will you make it eyes of ketchup?” he says.

“Do you want pancakes with ketchup on top? Are you sure it's a good... I mean, yeah, of course, pancakes will come with red ketchup eyes.”

“Three eyes on each of them.”

His eyes are different from hers. His hair is different from hers. He doesn't like to draw. He makes friends wherever he goes. He cries a lot, and he laughs hard. And he has a very short memory. How come they even met?

The rain finally bursts forth, turning the city into the ocean. The rain shower falls down the earth, turning both of them into sailors in the storm. They run, trying to find a place to hide, hoping that if there is a monster around the corner, it will be a kind one; two people hold hands and run.